It's no surprise that a lot of us on here want to be lifting with our friends and looking for our next competition. I am in the same boat and can't wait for the doors to open back up but in the meantime we can still be working on things to improve. In one of my last coaches blog I talked about some of the physical things we could work on, you can read that here https://www.elitefts.com/coaching-logs/how-can-we-still-improve-at-home/ Today I want to focus on mentally what we can work on, but first a quick little story to build the plot. In 2012 the London olympics was taken place, USA gymnast McKayla Maroney took second place which means the silver medal. You would think she would be on cloud nine, I mean she just became the second best gymnast in the world. The look on her face was priceless, it resembled someone who just found out she lost everything and was the worst to ever do gymnastics. I am sure a lot of lifters can relate to this, because in several studies the found that athletes who took the second medal not only expressed a very unhappy outlook but they also died younger and lived an unhappy life.
Now that story time is over let's focus on trying to not be like the silver medalists in the olympics and learn to reframe things so that we can have happiness and enjoyment in the things we love doing. The first thing we want to talk about is negative visualization, this is the concept of wondering what it would be like if the good things in our life never happened. Instead of thinking I just lost my powerlifting meet or I didn't hit the total I wanted think about what if I was never able to compete again, what if I had a catastrophic injury. By expressing things in such a way it will make you far more appreciative of everything you have in your life and the things you've accomplished. The next thing to focus on is the process, to become less outcome oriented and more process driven will give you an innate ability to enjoy each session you have and all the little things that make training great. It will also allow you to see a bigger picture and fix the things you need to do that is so easy to neglect because we are so consumed with hitting a certain weight. The third thing is to be self motivated and to not compare yourself to others. Don't let other people dictate how you train or what you do. Learn to cheer for your competitors and use their success to learn and be grateful but also their success should push you to want to train harder not because they are better than you but because you now know what is capable if you do everything right. Focus on the right things and happiness will be yours. Life is a journey not a destination.
